A large portion of all software development now takes place in cloud computing environments. These environments permit developers to continuously update and test projects in a decentralized manner. Problems arise when development takes place in the cloud and a master copy of the source code is stored and implemented on local systems. Updating the local copy of source code consumes large amounts of bandwidth. Because the code is under continuous development in the cloud, updates to the local copy must occur frequently. The result is that local systems must dedicate significant computing resources just to maintain the source code. Methods that try to reduce the bandwidth requirements by only updating portions of the source code rather than uploading a new copy create further problems associated with updating the incorrect source code resulting in errors in the computing system when the source code is attempted to be run. This causes the underlying computing systems to malfunction and potentially crash.
Source code components often depend on each other for functionality. In other words, some components of a computer program will not be able to run if specific other components of that program are not already updated. Conventional source code merging methods merge components as they are received. For a large volume of source code, that can mean that a first component that cannot function without reference to a second component might be merged before that second component is updated. The result is that the merged code cannot be executed on a computer system until the second component is also merged. Alternatively, the computer system may malfunction or crash when attempting to run the improperly merged source code. Current merging methods are also prone to inserting code fragments in the wrong location of the computer program. This can lead to a computer system malfunction or crash when the source code is implemented.